Passover in La Paz or Israelis in Llama Sweaters

Last night began the holiday of Passover. For weeks (months) my mother had been telling me to try to find a seder in La Paz to celebrate the holiday. It's La Paz, it has everything, including a lot of Israelis. There HAS to be a seder, she told me.

So I found one. At the Chabad House of La Paz. I knew very little about the Chabad house or the event but I sent an email asking for the details. I got a response in Hebrew. I do not speak Hebrew. So I tried to forward it to my wonderful cousin Eliana to translate for me but it was very early in the morning and I accidentally replied to the guy who sent it to me. His response:

"Sorry

I was very busy

r you in La Paz?

can You come to Chabad house to Register?"

On Sunday I went to the Chabad house. It was one of the most surreal experiences of my life. It's a pretty nondescript building, marked just by a sign. You enter through a garage type space and continue up a staircase to the Chabad house. Inside everyone was speaking Hebrew. It was absolutely full of Israelis and the red-haired-long-bearded-black-hatted Rabbis with their little blond sons. Your typical Chabad house. But on one side of the room were about 15 cholitas peeling potatoes. Cholitas are those Bolivian women you always see in pictures- the ones with the skirts and shawls who sometimes wear bowler hats. It was a clash of worlds. 

Eventually I succeeded in finding the Rabbi who spoke English and registered for the Seder. But. I was very nervous because I had no doubt that everything would be in Hebrew. 

It was around that time that I realized what I had actually signed up for. It turns out that the Passover seder in La Paz, Bolivia is one of the largest in the world - over 1,000 people come every year. Someone told me that this year it was over 2,000. Many Israelis travel around South America after they serve their time in the army and word of this seder has spread amongst these travelers. So what ends up happening is Israelis swarm La Paz and make this seder the largest gathering of Israelis I have ever seen outside of Israel. 

And so the night of the seder arrived. I was very worried about being on time and concerned about whether to wear a skirt or jeans. (I chose jeans because I assumed these backpacking Israelis are not the type to dress up - it was the correct choice.) But eventually I caught a minibus and made it to the Chabad house. It was crazy. Absolutely full of Israelis in llama sweaters. 

I have never in my life seen so many Israelis in llama sweaters. 

I was alone and I was uncomfortable and I did not understand anything that anyone was saying. So I started to play a game. I walked around the room listening to try to hear anyone speaking English or Spanish. I did this for about 45 minutes. I heard nobody speaking English or Spanish. There's also a stereotype that Israelis are beautiful. A lot of stereotypes exist for a reason. So I was alone in a room full of beautiful people wearing llama sweaters, afraid to talk to anyone. 

Finally I found a blonde girl who was clearly not Israeli and looked as lost as I felt. So I asked her if she was speaking English, and if I could sit with her. I joined her friends at the other end of the table. Turns out she was not Israeli and was not Jewish, just joining her friends at the seder. Respect, man. Anyway, the people I did end up sitting with were really great and after a couple glasses of homemade wine (because you can't buy kosher wine in Bolivia) that was worse than Maneschewitz, I was feeling a lot more comfortable. 

The whole situation was incredibly surreal. In the middle of La Paz where I have lived for 4 months without any sort of Jewish experience there was a gathering of 2,000 Jewish Israelis singing. Wow. 

The seder was kind of a mess. There were too many people to have any sort of unified singing. But it was pretty cool anyway. I sang Dayenu, asked some people why this night was different from all other nights, had some matzoh, wine, matbuchah... I even smuggled some matzoh out under my jacket. 

All in all it was a very memorable experience. I'm glad I got to be a part of it. Even though it cost 200 Bs. 

 

(disclaimer: this video was filmed before the holiday began)